


The (Re)view From the Park

by KittyCatCrunchie



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Blogger - Freeform, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Chefs, Happy Ending, Identity Porn, Kissing, M/M, Mistaken Identity, Misunderstandings, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:55:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26273722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittyCatCrunchie/pseuds/KittyCatCrunchie
Summary: When the renowned but mysterious food blogger, Flambabe, goes to review the famous restaurant, Bianchi's, he discovers that his waiter is the man he fell in love the week before. But after he falls in love with the notoriously anonymous owner of the restaurant, Bianchi himself, will he have to choose between them or will he discover the man's best-kept secret? Will hearts be broken or will true love prevail?
Relationships: Marco/Lyell, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 2





	The (Re)view From the Park

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EnzoAndBeans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnzoAndBeans/gifts).



> From this prompt: “Clueless writer who fancies a famous cook”
> 
> Since this has a fair amount of identity porn I’m just going to clarify the names in case it gets confusing.  
> Lyell - The writer of a famous food blog under a pen name.
> 
> Flambabe - Lyell’s nom de guerre, a famous blogger whose true identity is unknown to the public.
> 
> Bianchi - A famous chef and the owner of the equally famous restaurant, Bianchi’s who is notoriously secretive about his identity.
> 
> Marco - The head chef of Bianchi’s who is, in fact, Bianchi himself. Marco Bianchi.

They meet a week before Flambabe is scheduled to rate Bianchi’s, both online as a famous food critic introducing himself to the owner of the restaurant he will be rating next and in a chance meeting at the nearby city park. Both of these encounters leave each of them reeling and breathlessly in love, yet greatly conflicted. 

A week later, when Lyell eats at the restaurant, Marco leaves the kitchen to bring him his food personally, posing as a waiter. Marco jokes around and flirts with him while serving his food. They both enjoy the night more than they would’ve alone but feel guilty and unsure for their sudden and bursting love for two separate people. Is it really fair to their other love, that they enjoyed their time together so greatly?

The next day, the review comes out and mentions the great service of one of the waiters. Marco thinks that Lyell was undercover for Flambabe, who was scheduled to come to his restaurant and questions whether any of this was real. Marco is furious with Lyell for lying to him and taking advantage of his feelings for him and feels unbearably guilty for liking someone that isn't Flambabe despite his growing sense of betrayal. Lyell is confused at being the focus of Marco’s ire because he doesn't know what he did to make him upset. Marco refuses to tell him since he’s so sure Lyell knows what he’s done. Marco doesn't go out as a waiter for the next week; he knows Lyell returns each day to try and talk and refuses to let him play with his emotions any more.

Lyell goes back every day for seven days, from noon to night and doesn’t see Marco even once. And so he decides that it’s time Flambabe messaged Bianchi to find out if Marco is okay. His worry for the one man he loves makes him forget that he’s showing this very worry to the other man who holds his heart. 

Marco tells him nothing, talking through Flambabe will get Lyell nowhere. Being the blogger’s figurehead is the very reason that Marco’s heart was made to break. He can’t blame Flambabe, he knows he would never tell anyone to manipulate another for their gain but he's bitter. Bitter that he didn't come himself and he accuses him of being in love with the waiter about whom he asks. He knows it’s not fair since he is that very waiter and they are indeed very in love, but Marco can't bring himself to care at that moment. He just wants someone to feel some of the hurt that’s within his own heart. He regrets it as soon as he says it though, he shouldn’t have hurt the man he loves, even if they haven’t said it yet. 

Lyell keeps coming to the restaurant but Marco never appears. Everyone just says that Marco is still off shift, he’s glad that his friends are there for him, no questions asked.

But at the beginning of the next week, Lyell decides that he needs to see Marco so badly he'll go so far as to reveal his identity on his blog so that Marco knows that he didn't betray his trust. After all, it was him all along. But he knows that it would break Bianchi's heart to cut it off this way so he messages him and tells him that he's fallen in love with someone else and he's sorry. So very sorry. But he wants to say thank you because his restaurant is the reason that Lyell has met the love of his life and he wants Bianchi to know how much he appreciates it.

Marco is devastated. 

He thought Flambabe was serious. Why does his happiness never last? Does he not deserve it? Is he so imperfect of a person to get nothing he ever wants?

He cries himself to sleep.

Now he knows he'll be alone forever. He messed it up with Lyell because he wasn't prepared to hear him out about using his trust to feed information to a critic. He knows that’s his fault. It’s all his fault. He doesn't blame Flambabe for not sticking around. Who would want to be with someone as unreasonable and unforgiving as him anyway?

He wakes up the next morning to stinging eyes and an empty feeling in his heart.  
He gets ready for work on autopilot. After all, he can't leave his restaurant for something as fickle as a broken heart.

He walks to the train station and gets on the right line. The ride has never felt so long in his life, so he stares at the dubious scratches and stains on the train car walls until he arrives at his stop. Just as he walks up the steps to start the three-block walk to the back of his restaurant, it starts to rain. Not in the slow and gentle way that feels like a sweet caress, but all at once, with such great force that it feels he's gotten punched in the gut a second time since the night before. The rain drenches him in seconds and soon he feels as cold and numb in his arms as he's been feeling in his heart.

He eventually gets to the back door and lets himself into the bustle of the morning shift doing dish prep for the breakfast rush. His sous chef, Claire, whizzes by carrying a tower of teetering pans but stops short when she sees the deep lines and dark splotches under his eyes. She gets him a change of clothes and makes him sit down and tell her what happened.

As he begins his story, one of the line cooks rushes in with his phone open to a picture of Lyell's face. Why the hell did this guy have a picture of his- of Lyell? His mood sours further and he blocks out most of what the guy says until:

"-and this is him! He finally revealed his face! Flambabe! Isn't that exciting?"

His mind grinds to a halt.  
What  
Flambabe.  
Flambabe is Lyell?  
Fuck him, he really fucked shit up this time, didn’t he?  
Why would he even want to come back here after he's already found someone else to love?

He snatches the young man's phone from his hand and starts reading the article from the top.

It starts off simple, that he'll be coming back to the restaurant this evening and that he knows this is the only way to get the waiter’s attention. The waiter? Why? He can't help the way his heart speeds up with hope. He knows it's probably not him. After all, he isn’t actually a waiter and plenty of the actual staff have served him in the weeks he’s been eating here. Like Jay or Pierce or Jeane; Jeane is lovely he knows. She'd make a lovely partner for him. He suddenly realises that Lyell might not even be into guys. They hadn't actually called what they'd been doing "dating" had they? No. Not with Flambabe either. He can't remember talking about it. What if they were just friends? God knows that kind of thing would happen to him. Thinking he's dating someone just because they paid attention to him and were nice to him. Of course, they weren't dating. The excitement stirred up by the picture dies down in the face of this realisation. 

"-ef. Chef? Chef!" Claire sounds like she's been trying to get his attention for a while and has the beginnings of worry showing on her face. He waves her off saying he's fine and that he really should be getting to the kitchen. She shoots him a sharp look that says "I am your sous chef and you are in no condition to be in that kitchen right now, so you'll stay here until you either get some sleep or start feeling better". He sighs and sags back onto the chair he pulled up in the office, nodding in acceptance. She knows as well as he does that while he may be the head chef and creative mind behind their menu, she is the one that keeps the kitchen working like the well-oiled machine it is. The door closes behind her as she returns to the organised chaos of the kitchen and he glances back down at the phone. He might as well see what expectations Flambabe is coming back with. He starts reading again but the words blur together until the last line. "I need to see him again to tell him something important."

Him.  
Him?  
Him  
Shit really?  
No  
Maybe his true love is a him. But that doesn't mean it'll be him.

The breakfast rush starts and he manages to persuade Claire to let him back into the kitchen with a promise that he'll have a sit down if he starts feeling bad again, but he can't concentrate. Him. The uncertainty buzzes just beneath his skin all the way through the end of the breakfast rush and through the entirety of lunch. Soon, dinner is only a couple of hours away and he's going crazy with the anticipation and worry that he's making up signs where there aren't any.  
By the time the rush starts, he's already exhausted, but when one of the waiters brings an order back to the kitchen with the words of Flambabe's arrival on his lips, Bianchi cannot help himself but to make and bring the dish out himself once it's done.

He knows he's probably setting himself up for disappointment but he can't help the small sliver of hope that manages to crawl its way into his chest. He steps through the double swinging doors and almost as if drawn by a magnet, his gaze locks with the person he wants to see both most and least in the world.  
The sheer joy and hope evident on Lyell's face makes him smile on reflex as he brings over his plate. 

"Hey..."

"Hi," 

Lyell smiles up at him, a delightful pink dusting his cheeks. Then, he starts speaking, 

"I wanted to tell you something important but you weren't here and I kept coming back but you were still not here and I was really worried- where did you even-mmph" 

Bianchi interrupts him with a kiss, making sure not to spill his food. After all, it was made just for him. Then he pulls away, about as red as the marinara sauce topping the dish in his hands and places the plate in front of the man, men, he's so deeply in love with.

"I'm sorry" "-glad you're here"

Lyell looks up at him and repeats himself.

"I'm glad you're here because I needed to tell you something very important.  
I'm in love with you."

Marco blinks his suddenly very blurry eyes and scrubs at the hot tears flowing down his cheeks. The love of his life stands up and cups his face with his hands, gently brushing away the tears with his thumbs.

"I love you, Marco. I've loved you since the moment I met you"

Marco smiles and chokes out a wet laugh.

"I love you too, and have since the first time we spoke. Which, now that we're talking about it, might be earlier than what you would think. You see, while I have served you both times you've eaten here, I'm not really a waiter. This is mine, this restaurant."  
The stunned silence that follows is only broken when a strangled laugh bubbles it's way out of Lyell’s mouth.

"Look at us. I've been jealous of myself this entire time and forced myself to choose between you and well...you. I'm so glad I didn't end up having to choose for real. I'm so glad I get to love you both"

Marco just smiles and pulls him into another kiss, slow and tender to make up for the desperate one before. He finds that, during the only time in his life where he's gotten what he wanted, he doesn't care that he's in a restaurant full of people or that that restaurant is his.

The man that he loves, loves him right back.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to hang out on tumblr! https://kittycatcrunchie.tumblr.com/
> 
> Cross-posted to Wattpad.


End file.
